Vincent Hervouet 12:07 p.m., February 22, 2022
Monday evening, after eight years of war, Vladimir Poutine, the godfather of the pro-Russian separatists, announced in a televised speech of more than one hour its intention to deploy troops in the east of the country, in Donbass, for " maintain peace".
Our international columnist Vincent Hervouet gives us his analysis of the situation.
EDITORIAL
After eight years of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin, godfather of pro-Russian separatists, announced Monday evening in a televised address the deployment of his army in eastern Ukraine to "maintain peace".
This Tuesday, the editorialist Vincent Hervouet returns to this burning international news and gives us his analysis of the situation.
You can't say the Kremlin robbed the bank
All that for this ?
The Kremlin has therefore recognized the two rump states of the Donbass, populated by Russian speakers and which it has held at arm's length for eight years, two People's Republics of misery, as large as three French departments but which are a dead end, 3 million he inhabitants with a maximum of unemployed and old people, an impressive rate of alcoholism, heavy industry which is scrapping… We cannot say that the Kremlin has got its hands on a treasure.
That he robbed the bank.
The first question is why Russia is annexing the Donbass by sending its army there, when for eight years it has been arming the local apparatchiks and financing these acres of snow without recognizing their independence?
The answer is Professor Putin's strange lesson yesterday, huddled in his chair, inflicting this 65-minute lecture, without a teleprompter and without a smile, his cold anger, rewriting imperial history in his own way... Russians, always patriots.
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Hafez el-Assad the Syrian tyrant inflicted the same kind of fresco on his French visitors, who came to plead for Lebanon and try (in vain!) to coax the raïs whose capacity for nuisance was known.
Putin like Assad takes his revenge for humiliation, it is the same paranoia in the face of the West, the same contempt, especially of the truth, the same imperial nostalgia, the same resentment that never disarms.
Europe promises to react with firmness…
Yes, of course… These are the acts that we await with curiosity, the escalation of indignant declarations does not intimidate Vladimir Poutine.
The United States decided on Monday evening to take sanctions against Donetsk and Lugansk, as if the local apparatchiks were importing Cadillacs or taking their vacations in Malibu.
Europe has no strategic ambition, it did not even want the dialogue with Russia to which Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel invited it last year.
But she has enough common sense to avoid a gas crisis like there was an oil crisis in the 1970s.
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If Putin stops there, if he de facto annexes the Donbass and forgets that he wanted a global negotiation on security with NATO's commitment not to expand further and that he has no got nothing from Joe Biden, it will be an intense relief.
He won the Donbass, but he will have lost Ukraine and the game with Washington
In a few weeks, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria and Vanuatu will recognize the two People's Republics as they did fifteen years ago for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, torn from Georgia after a lightning war , and it won't even make a news brief.
Unfortunately, the deployment of the Russian army along the demarcation line with the order to keep the peace, that is, in direct contact with the Ukrainian army, poses a major risk.
It's a sword of Damocles pointed at Kiev.
The crisis will worsen, spread, it will drag on.
Paris is indignant at Putin's ideological drift
France is offended, because the long head-to-head with Emmanuel Macron was useless.
Vladimir Putin has bought time.
The Minsk agreements never respected, the format of Normandy, all this flattering diplomacy was in paper and he made confetti out of it.
By way of a provisional balance sheet, we can add that America can rejoice.
NATO finds a reason to exist.
The amputated Ukraine will never be admitted to it, but if it had been, it would be intact, CQFD.
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- Ukraine: what Vladimir Putin said before deploying his troops
China too can be rubbing its hands.
Vladimir Putin was careful to respect the Olympic truce.
By turning his back on Europe, he condemns himself to an alliance with Peking.
What he is doing in Donbass puts into perspective what is happening in Hong Kong, what is likely to happen in Taiwan."